How do you recharge your batteries?

ON 12 September 2001, I tried to work at my desk as normal but found that I couldn't. I started to shake all over with the searing images of the day before in my mind. So I drove out of my city of Boston and started walking into the forest. I came across a small stream gurgling down over rocks. The water was cool and clear. I wept hugely but cathartically as I felt the contrast between the images of flames and death and destruction and hatred, and this simple, jolly little stream, constant in its replenishment.

It's not just in traumatic times that I feel the need of nature. Research is showing more and more that humans need to have contact with other members of creation for full health--mental and emotional as well as physical.

My little local forest is my rejuvenator. I manage a walk there two or three times a week. I've seen deer hoof-marks in the snow in January but haven't seen their owner yet, but I will one day if I'm quiet enough. Meanwhile I chat with the chipmunks and squirrels. There are flowers to be found from early April till the end of November, the last hold-out being the Witch Hazel with its wrinkled, yellow flowers. It's a beautiful world and I'm grateful to be able to enjoy it and be refreshed by it.

Bryan Hamlin, Boston, USA

HOW TO recharge my batteries?

The first step is to find out that my batteries need to be recharged! Sometimes I can't function properly and I do not really know the reason and consequently can't find out the solution. This needs an honest check up.

I might be physically not well and need to give more attention to my health, some rest and some treatment.

Any normal person needs a certain amount of spirituality to feel well. If this is missing I feel very disturbed. Then, giving more time to prayer and meditation, spiritual readings and meetings can really charge the batteries. Asking the Holy Spirit to fill up my mind and soul will never fail.

My batteries could be empty due to spending so much on bad feelings, relationships that need mending, or lack of honesty between me and others. All this needs to be fixed to recharge the batteries.

Human batteries are like a stream of water. If the water doesn't move then it becomes stagnant. If the water flows out and nourishes other people then the batteries will work well and will be spontaneously recharged.

Hoda Amin, Cairo, Egypt

CURRENTLY ENGAGED in writing a PhD thesis, I need to take time out to allow my thoughts and the material I am working with to reconfigure and generate new ideas. An elderly friend recently taught me the craft of tapestry weaving, and I have found this a wonderfully restorative activity to balance my academic work. Weaving a picture out of many colours and textures of wool feels like bringing together the many strands of thought into a coherent whole. I emerge feeling not only rested but also rewarded with the sight of a creation taking shape, and often with new ideas for my writing, even though I have not been consciously seeking them.

Jane Cooper, Christchurch, New Zealand 

I AM a woman approaching 77, whose batteries quickly get flat--partly because I involve myself in too many issues too often!

When they need recharging, I sometimes sit completely still on the sofa in our living room, gazing at the trees outside, the hills beyond, and the sky. Or I just sit still. Many times I sing the lines from the hymn, 'Let the healing streams abound ...'. It is important for me to be still enough long enough, until balance is reasonably regained.

At other times there is a great deal of fun and relaxation in trying out new, exotic though simple recipes for our daily dinners.

Apart from that, one brilliant and effective way to chase stress out of the body is a crossword puzzle--the more complicated, the better. That also works wonders!

Aagot Engebretsen, Sande, Norway

QUITE YOUNG, with my father, I discovered the mountains. Then it was North Wales; now I live in sight of the Alps. 'Great things are done when men and mountains meet,' wrote William Blake. 'This is not done by jostling in the street.'

There is such power in nature; there's a time that is not ours. And there's a humility that we're driven to that takes us out of our little lives and quarrels, our likes and dislikes. I recall a T V journalist badgering the chief safety officer of the Valais Canton about what he was going to do about an abnormally massive snowfall. 'Wait until the Spring,' was his memorable reply.

Andrew Stallybrass, Geneva, Switzerland